Patrice Desilets Must Return to Ubisoft to Continue 1666 Project

As the THQ dissolution dust continues to settle, publishers get to crack their knuckles as they wrap their hands around new IPs and developers. But in the case of Ubisoft, they’ve gotten their hands on an old developer: former Assassin’s Creed creative lead Patrice Désilets, who left Ubisoft for THQ Montreal back in 2010. According to a post on CVG, if Désilets wants to continue working on his project, codenamed 1666, he’ll have to rejoin the company he left under apparently less-than-favorable conditions.

According to the post, Désilets’s departure sparked a fierce “hiring and headhunting war,” in which Désilets poached talent from his former studio to work at THQ Montreal. Now that Ubisoft’s shelled out $2.5 million to buy that portion of THQ’s assets…well, they’re back under Ubisoft’s whimsical and charming French thumb.

It’s not clear yet whether Désilets will actually go back to work, though I would bet that he’ll make a return if for no other reason than to finish what he started. That said, I really have no idea what’s going to happen next. I have the feeling that Ubisoft bought the studio and the game because they want what’s being made, and will hopefully have the good sense to make the working environment amenable to their former employee and his team. But we’ll have to wait and see.